


Say The Word

by FourLanterns



Category: The Young and the Restless
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2020-12-28 00:50:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21128075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourLanterns/pseuds/FourLanterns
Summary: I'm new to this fandom so forgive me anything I get wrong!Planned to be a few chapters. Begins with Mariah's conversation with Sharon when she confesses the kiss.





	1. Mutual

“It was mutual. I think.”

_I think._

That is what Mariah says to Sharon when Sharon asks: “She kissed you?”

So much work being done by those two words, wasn’t there?

_I think._

It was definitely she herself, Mariah, who had initiated that kiss, when it finally came; and Mariah knows that. Doesn't say it, not to Sharon. She was the one who finally closed the gap between herself and Tessa, stepped into the breach, made her way into that nameless void and pressed her lips against Tessa’s own; made all those looks, and glances, and hugs that lasted just a couple of seconds too long, and the texts that were just a bit too frequent and intimate and too late at night and too early in the morning, and the touches of Tessa’s hand that were just not quite how your brother’s girlfriend should touch you – yes. OK. It was Mariah herself. It had been her, it was she who had been the one who lit the spark that made all of that unspoken feeling, as much as it was still unspoken (and for so long after that, too, still unsaid), yet, something somehow _done_ between them all the same. 

Yes. Mariah was the one who had crossed the line. But that line – they were either side of it for a reason, weren’t they? And that spark – it took two people to generate something like that. It was _something _between them, one way or another, and how had that happened? Who had made their connection, which should be that of just friends, close friends perhaps, after all Tessa was dating Mariah’s brother (_God!)_, something… incendiary? How had that kiss become something... that _happened_?

She thinks of Tessa that morning weeks before, on the couch, the night after she had avoided Devon and his home and his bed _(you know why you were avoiding Devon, and Devon’s home, and especially Devon’s bed), _Tessa telling her she was completely incredible (_the finest compliment she could ever recall having gotten). _Tessa stroking her hair, and, well, looking at her, and Mariah had been looking back, and the gaze between them had been one that had connected just a little too long. Tessa had touched her hair just a little too long, just a little too tenderly, it was… too much. Or was it not enough? Because, if Tessa had been a guy – if Tessa had not been dating Noah – if Noah had not been her brother – if Noah, and god, Devon, yes, meant to be her own boyfriend, had not knocked at the door _right at that moment_ \-- 

What had she said in her babbling in San Francisco after they had finally pulled away from one another _(yes, from one another. Mutual) _… that she had no idea where the kiss came from? _(Liar)_. And what had she done? Apologized, almost automatically, because she didn’t know what you did after kissing a woman who was your friend, and your brother’s girlfriend, but that seemed apposite, say sorry, quickly, fervently_._

_Liar. _

Who knows what this feeling was called. But it wasn’t sorry. Not that. Yes, she was terrified. But she was exhilarated. She felt guilty, because of Noah. Devon. Other people. But she was on a scary, high-wire, thrill ride _(does that even make sense?) _all the same, up on cloud nine or somewhere, elevated to a new level of life she hadn’t ever experienced before, didn’t even know she could reach.

And from up there, looking down on the rest of her world, on the mess she _(not just she_) was making, seeing all the trouble she was causing _(she kissed me back)_, knowing all of this, she still, no, she wasn’t sure she was truly regretful. The only way she could be sorry would be if she had done something Tessa didn’t want. And she knew that wasn’t true. It was not all her, and no, it was not out of nowhere, not at all. It’s not something she ever would have done, unless, unless…

How Tessa had looked at her. And the tone of her voice. That day, other days. On that day, when Mariah lifted her hand to Tessa’s face, felt Tessa’s radiant warmth, there was, already, nothing else Mariah could do, _but _kiss her. 

There are meant to be infinite universes, or so Mariah had heard; but she couldn’t conceive of one where she wouldn’t have done just the same thing, over and over, couldn’t see another path. Every version of herself she could imagine leaned in, not even knowing what she was doing, really, but doing it just the same, not ever even having thought about a woman this way before but that didn’t stop her. When she herself wasn’t single, but that didn’t either. When Tessa was her friend, when Tessa was with Noah, when Noah was Sharon’s son, and she was Sharon’s daughter, and that made them brother and sister after all. Nothing could stop that kiss. Mariah was always, in every dimension and all possible timelines, going to kiss her brother’s girlfriend anyway...

The kiss itself. Tender, hesitant, at first. Tessa’s lips so soft, _nothing like a guy_. I mean that sounded dumb even to herself, Mariah would think later; of course, now that Mariah thought about it _(do you ever not think about it?),_ it made basic sense for the kiss to be softer than with men, than with Devon, yes, him, her boyfriend, for example, right. But Mariah had never imagined anything like _this,_ and then suddenly it was not just the physical sensation of their lips pressed together but something else that Mariah could feel through every nerve in her body, searing into her mind if her mind could be branded or scarred _(you know it can_), because this was something wild and beautiful that she had never felt before. It was a vodka shot, a rollercoaster dip, it was jumping right into the ocean, the shock of cold water, the heat on a summer day, _God, what was this? Damn_, _hell, did I get all of this so wrong this whole time until now? Is this how kissing is meant to feel? _

Tessa’s mouth was yielding, to begin with; but then came sudden insistence. Tessa was kissing her back, and not just that; she was moving her hand to Mariah’s own waist and deepening the kiss, responding to the tentative movements of Mariah’s tongue with her own, making Mariah feel like she was about to be lifted off her feet, and somewhere into the air. Tessa’s kiss was not languid, not accepting, it was deliberate, meant, and there was something underlying it all too – something urgent. A fierceness and well, Mariah supposed, later, the word was _passion_. A passion that Mariah had never felt before. From Tessa. From herself. The kiss was soft and hard and gentle and rough and it was _everything_, and it was Mariah who had started it and Mariah who had stopped it (_that's right, isn't it? The end of it wasn't mutual, I stopped it_), and not an hour went by that Mariah didn’t think about that kiss. And how Tessa looked at her when she finally pulled away.

_Mutual, I think._

That just about covered it.


	2. What Happens in San Francisco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contains mention of Noah/Tessa but hopefully tolerable in context...

Tessa hated herself. 

_So, what’s new._

Well. She’d found a new thing to hate herself for. 

How could she have... what was she even..._doing_? Why did she kiss Mariah back? 

_Because I wanted to. So much. Have wanted to kiss her, for so long._

Wrong answer.

It was not part of the plan to be kissing Noah Newman’s sister. In fact, it was the sort of off-plan activity that had very much the potential to entirely fuck up the scheme that Tessa had spent such time and considerable energy on. An exhausting enterprise that was leaving her even more dead inside than she had anticipated at the outset. Months now of dating, kissing, sleeping with, a guy she had no real interest in. 

A nice guy. If you like nice guys. 

_If you like guys at all._

Tessa has always known she likes women. There was no question about that, no doubt ever since she was young, when she first became conscious of feelings for, attraction to, others. Girls, women, for sure. It was obvious, for as long as she could remember. She was called gay by other people before she knew she was just that; before she even really knew what it meant. The only slight doubt in her mind in the past had been whether she liked men too.

Because she’s supposed to like men, isn’t she? So maybe she can. And sometimes she lies to herself that that question is still an open one. 

When Noah says something a little funny, and she laughs. Or when he does something thoughtful for her. Something sweet. 

But then, there’s when she is in bed with him and he is making love to her, and when she is doing things to, with, for, Noah that she doesn’t even want to think about. Even when doing them. 

When Noah is on on top of her, between her legs, inside her; in those moments when Tessa is thinking of Noah’s sister, imagining Mariah in all those places instead. 

Mariah’s mouth and hands on her body. Mariah’s skin against Tessa’s own. Mariah taking her there.

_Mariah_. 

Tessa always has to fake her climax, to get it over with. She cannot come with this man, with any man. She pretends to come so that Noah will go to sleep happy and proud he thinks he’s satisfied her. 

He is that vaguely considerate sort; wants her to enjoy it too, isn’t totally sure how. But he tries to do things that might work for other women. 

It just makes it worse, of course. 

Tessa hates herself. 

_So what’s new. _

She has to carry on playing the game. The long game she’s had from the start. Surely they’re getting near the key stages. If all goes to plan she’ll soon be Mrs Noah Newman, and after a suitable period... she can be herself again. 

And so she pretends she likes what Noah does. What she does to him. When she feels nothing. When she wants to cry herself to sleep afterwards. When she goes to the bathroom, after Noah falls asleep and she leans against the back of the bathroom door and brings herself off quickly, urgently, thinking of Mariah, of course, coming with as quiet a gasp as she can manage, her fist balled-up against her own mouth so she doesn’t wake her boyfriend with what her orgasm really sounds like. 

She’s got to keep up the act, after all.

Which is why kissing Mariah of all people, even if she is the only person in the world Tessa can think of who she really wants to be kissing, is such an utterly stupid, dangerous damn thing to be doing. 

But Tessa cannot stop it from happening. Mariah’s hand is on her cheek, and Tessa knows Mariah will kiss her. She knows she will kiss Mariah back. There have been looks. There have been touches. There have been moments. 

This is more than a moment. _Isn’t it?_

Tessa hasn’t felt a damn thing during a kiss, or anything else, it seems, for so long, and now she feels _everything_. The kiss with Mariah is, from start to end, pure instinct. Uncompelled. It’s no act. She isn’t faking. 

It’s almost romantic (_you know it really is one of the purest romantic experiences of your life. Even if you’re sleeping with her brother_). 

It’s almost too much (_Mariah could never be too much, Tessa could never have too much of her. But she would like to try_). 

How can Mariah be so absurd, so brave as to kiss her...? 

Tessa wants to take Mariah to bed right there and then. She wants to taste more than just Mariah’s mouth. Not just that kind of thing... She wants to make everything better for her, she wants to fix the whole world for this woman. When she says Mariah is completely incredible, this is no act designed to ensnare a member of the Newman family. It’s not a line. Mariah is beautiful, intelligent, charismatic. 

She has a darker side too, Tessa knows. And she wants that as well. To feel that jagged edge of Mariah’s, for herself.

_Back to thoughts of being in bed with her again, then... _

It’s a kiss that will send shockwaves into the future, to places far from San Francisco, and change both their lives forever. 

It’s a kiss that feels like running away. It’s a kiss that feels like coming home. 

Mariah pulls away, at last, seemingly shocked at herself. And Tessa feels happier than she can remember being in such a long time.

But the moment passes (_doesn’t it?_) 

The spell is not exactly broken, for the room is still spinning — for Tessa, for them both — but then, after all, the world is too. 

Tessa must go back to real life. To Noah. That’s the plan.

And so that’s what Tessa makes herself do. 

_It’s not like Mariah’s really interested in me. Why would she be. It really was just a moment in time. I’m sure it didn’t mean anything to her anyway. _

_What happens in San Francisco stays in San Francisco...right? _

Right.

Until Mariah decides to bring it all back.


	3. It Was Too Complicated

**TWO YEARS LATER**

_“You know_,_ sometimes”_, Mariah murmurs, with a kiss to the back of Tessa’s neck that makes her lover tremble, even though they are lying together in the relative safety, if not luxurious comfort, of their bed — they’re on their way up now though, that can be upgraded — “I thought we were never going to get to that conversation. That you were never going to admit it_.”_

Tessa turns to kiss her full on the mouth and they lose a few seconds to that sensation, no sign of any danger of that spark being lost as yet.

“Admit what... that I love you…? You knew that I loved you.”

Mariah smiles. Tessa loses herself in that smile for a little while as she had lost herself in the kiss.

“Oh, maybe I did”, Mariah shrugs at last. “Or _hoped_. But talk about a _slow burn_… And you were playing it as, I love you as a friend…" 

_“_No, no I wasn’t… I was like, _I love you_, but it’s _too complicated…_”

They do this sometimes. Go back to what was said, exchanged, sharing during those months of angst. Those stolen moments. The stolen journal. There’s something intoxicating, something that makes heat rise up in them both, somehow, when they just start by just gently, languidly, touching at the very edges of what they did to each other before they were together, now subsumed into what they do to each other, and together, now they are a couple. Along with a true love that’s new for them both, and has Mariah in particular reassessing how she had previously regarded every sappy ballad love song — even the ones Tessa has written — there’s a pure, endlessly surprising physical connection and intimacy, that neither of them have ever experienced anything close to before. It encompasses, in contrast to some of the delicate sweetness of their love when it is in the light — a very tangible and present dark side, which neither woman has ever felt able to express with anyone else.

That night at her work, and again in Underground, where they had been so close to talking properly, to connecting at least in the form of words. Mariah had been a mixture of heartbroken and, what – more, well, the only other expression she could think of, was, _how this was possible _— _turned on_ —than she had ever been in her life. To get so close to hearing the words from Tessa’s lips about what was really going on between them, after months of sharing a very much _mutual_ lie, one told to each other, and also to themselves, over and over again, silently, by omission…

That night, she had found herself with insane thoughts of taking Tessa to the bathroom right there and then and… with their boyfriends in the same club, to do… things. OK, you know, maybe this _was _her first rodeo after all but Mariah was an adult, she had some reasonable idea of what the things would be (even if sometimes, even these days, her manicures didn’t always keep pace and she would have to apologise and go down on Tessa for hours instead —Tessa didn’t mind…), she had Googled, and anyway she imagined _Tessa_ would know what she was doing… Tessa had done this, I mean, _been with women_ before, Mariah was sure...

“I wasn’t thinking of you _as a friend_,” Tessa tells Mariah now, kissing her slowly and softy on the lips again.

“Well I certainly wasn’t thinking of you as one…” Mariah replies, kissing her back harder. 

A frequent fantasy that they have now played out for real more than once springs to Mariah’s mind, as it did that night in the club, a lovely thought in which she pushes Tessa up against a wall – _it works even if you’re the shorter one_, it turns out, they’ve tried and tested it – puts her hands up to Tessa’s exquisite thighs…

“You don’t go around kissing your friends, then?” Tessa says, against Mariah’s mouth, moves down to kiss her neck again, there’s that thrill up and down the spine of them both when she does it…

Mariah pretends to consider. “Well. Only the really stunning ones. You know like you… or Devon…”

And Tessa pretends to agree. “Well, yeah, it’s true. I get it. He _is_ a pretty hot guy –”

“Oh god, really, _no!_ My ex, my brother…!” Mariah’s (mock? Is it? Mostly) indignation is always a sight to behold.

“Just a straightforward observation from a gay woman with good taste.”

Of late, Tessa has started to use the word “gay”, and even sometimes “lesbian”, about herself, after previously not using any label at all. Mariah feels more comfortable without one and Tessa doesn’t try to apply one to her, but she’s intrigued, and a little proud, on account of Tessa becoming more definitive about her own sexuality, which it does seem can and should be defined.

“Well, you know, personally,” Mariah says, “if it’s a _female _friend, I make sure I take them to _San Francisco_ to kiss them for the first time… something about the place…”

_Just high spirits during some time away. Kind of thing that happens at a music festival, right? Couple of girls having fun together, no big deal. _

_I mean, San Francisco's obviously... gay, lesbian, all that connotations aside, it wasn’t like Mariah had been wanting to kiss her best friend for weeks back there in Wisconsin… _

The kiss, for so long illicit and non-discussed, and the fine city of San Francisco, are touchstones between them now for how things first began. There’s always a little hovering guilt in the back of their minds for their actions, the first kiss being no less mutual than all the others they’ve shared since, after all. For what they did to Devon and particularly to Noah, Mariah does feel badly, but she can’t say she feels what amounts to remorse. She’s Tessa’s person, she said it herself, and Mariah cannot honestly say that she would change anything that has happened. Like the depth of her feelings for Tessa, her starkly relative lack of regret on this matter is something that alarms her slightly, but which Tessa also makes better just by being around, and being _her _and yes, especially when she _does that_… (Tessa’s hands are exploring her again, even though they already know her) because surely they are meant to be together, the two of them, she thinks, hooking her leg around Tessa’s own and rolling and pushing her over so that it is she, Mariah, who is above Tessa, and perhaps, in a way, in some sense, the one in control. 

“I just _knew_ you were going to be a top…” Tessa murmurs against her mouth.

“Oh you think that’s some_ gay_ term I don’t know? I _read things_…”

“Yeah, I know, I’ve seen your internet history.”

“There you go, not respecting privacy again… Oh... yes... OK, I guess I don't need... personal space..."

This time, it’s as good as the first time, as it always is. Mariah had never understood sex, or a sexual attraction, that could take over a person’s whole life before. Now? Yeah, _now, _she does.

_To be continued_


	4. Treating the Patient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jumping around in time and space to write whatever I want, blatant cheating.

** _2018_ **

It’s a beautiful new experience for Mariah: to be in a truly blossoming relationship, and realise what people mean when they speak about feeling those butterflies in the stomach; and then there’s that catch in her chest, her heart really actually skipping a beat, when Tessa walks into a room, even when Tessa walks into Crimson Lights in broad daylight, when Mariah is waiting for her. Even when they have planned to meet right there and then, and this is her girlfriend. Mariah shouldn’t, _should she? _— really be taken aback by how beautiful her girlfriend is, _but, she is _— and the thing is that Tessa _is_, really beautiful, and everyone from here to Chicago, and perhaps all the way to the Bay Area, can see that that’s the case, and not only that, but that the two of them are more than just friends.

The big neon sign above their heads has been constructed with full-wattage rainbow-sequenced bulbs, and it doesn’t take a gossip like Hilary to see what’s right in front of everyone’s eyes. Mariah feels herself blushing crimson on a daily basis — although it’s not all bad, apparently, because Tessa likes to see Mariah’s pink cheeks with her red hair, sometimes...

It’s truly amazing, life-altering, to have a relationship where she has no doubts about how she feels. Sure, there were still question marks about who Tessa _was._ Gaps, things Mariah didn’t know, untold history, and a few things that she found just didn’t really make sense. _And then there’s how the woman behaves sometimes!_ It’s not long after things blow up with Noah and the whole journal debacle, that Tessa is saying _maybe it isn’t too late_ for the two of them, and Mariah doesn’t know whether to drag Tessa behind the coffeehouse to kiss her for a good hour or so, or tell this girl once and for all to get out of her life, leave town, and leave her alone for good.

And it had been the _day after _Tessa had moved in with Noah, after that last day at Sharon’s house, when they had held each other and Mariah had wanted so badly to beg Tessa not to go, to tell her that she didn’t need anything more than their friendship, their too deep, intense connection, and the happy, pretending-to-complain tidying up Mariah found herself doing in an effort to manage the swirling vortex of chaos Tessa created all around her clothes and her “cooking” and her vinyl and her guitar and all the clutter and mess she brought that Mariah loved so very much and wanted reducing the resale value of her family home forever — it was just the day after _that_ (when it had been pointed out to her by some absurd, absurdly gorgeous person that _sappy wasn’t a good look on her_), that Tessa had been back to Mariah at GC Buzz for an attempt at one of those too-much, _pure longing_ sort of conversations they had had too many _(but never enough) _times before. Mariah had shut it down. But perhaps a TV studio was a suitable place to send such decidedly mixed signals.

The girl was _unbelievable_, Mariah told herself. I mean… yeah. Damn, she was _unbelievable, _Mariah agreed with her own self, adopting a different tone for the word in her mind. Tessa made her angrier than anyone else she could readily recall, and she knew that was because of how much she cared. _You’d have to be pretty invested…. _Nothing Devon did, no stupid fight he picked, or puppy-dog-eyed look in Hilary’s direction, could make Mariah as furious as Tessa suggesting that perhaps she and Mariah had things that they should talk about, _cue dark and mysterious look_, that maybe they could be together after all, _you know, seeing as I blew it with my first choice: your brother. _Mariah’s temper was, as always, quick to anger, and quick to forgiveness, her sudden bursts of classic redhead rage flaring up and boiling over when Tessa hugged random women, or hid her texts, or, you know, _had some whole other secret life that she never breathed a word of until the evidence was blowing up right in both their faces…_

But Mariah can’t stay away. She can’t _not feel_. She can’t stop this. She hasn’t ever been able to stop this, not since their first kiss; perhaps even before that. It’s a crazy, runaway train of a romance that might well derail her own life, but all she can do is do her best to keep herself on track.

Nearly her whole relationship with Devon, reminding herself how much she admired him, how much of a catch he was, and yet spending nearly all her private moments thinking of her best friend, and what she wanted to do to her, and what she wanted to have done right back…

Because — yes, it _is _going so great, but in any case it’s an unstoppable force, it’s not really like Mariah is doing any work on the relationship right now, she’s just caught up in… the extreme weather event of a romance that she appears to be at the epicentre of…

But, it must be said, there is _one thing_ that Mariah must say she can think of, _that would make it even more perfect_.

“Oh, _can you_?” Tessa asks.

“Yes…” Mariah says. _Meaningful look. _

Tessa smiles at her, an “are you sure?” smile that makes Mariah want to roll her eyes and roll this girl right over onto her back. Because… yeah, that’s right.

They didn’t make love yet. And it’s not on Mariah.

It’s Tessa who has been applying the brakes for them both.

Who’d have thought this chaotic, catastrophic… _artist_ would end up being so _thoughtful. _So patient. So _non-pushy_, that… well…. _Damn._ Mariah’s cheeks are flushed tonight, but not with embarrassment. No, it’s that, to be honest, sometimes, like right now, yes sometimes, Mariah thinks she damn well wants to be _pushed. _

Whilst Tessa does not directly disclose the details of her experience with women at this stage, and Mariah doesn’t really want to know _(does she? Yes. No. A little. Not really. Just some of it...), _some of the things Tessa says lead Mariah to the conclusion that there’s a fair bit of history there _(and a little flash of jealousy runs through her at the thought).  
_

Tessa’s lived with “people.” Not just Noah, and not just men. Reading between the lines, there seems to have been at least one fairly important woman.

(“Not like you,” Tessa will tell her later.

“You lived with her,” Mariah will say. “For nearly a year, by the sounds of it...”

“Oh, I liked her, but — the living together— Mariah, I… … “

Tessa will quietly wonder if explaining the context of her relationship with a woman she didn’t love, will make it sound better or worse, to the woman she now does 

Finally, she does say it: “Mariah, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

But that’s later).

“Want to stay over?” Tessa had asked, the night before, mid-kiss, at the studio (the apartment rather than the recording studio, or GC Buzz...) and Mariah had thought, _oh yes, yes I do_. But in the end, they had spent the night talking, laughing, exchanging buzzy and happy little kisses, and finally falling asleep wrapped around each other, Tessa’s body and breath incredibly warm, Mariah waking early and listening to the other woman’s heartbeat against her own chest for an hour or more, before Tessa’s caffeine urge had finally caused her to stir.

And, well, all things considered, Mariah can’t really say she’s sorry. It’s lovely, for there to be someone to hold her and make her feel safe when they _aren’t_ having sex, and in fact with no pressure or expectation of doing so. It’s really rather wonderful. 

_But damn it, if she doesn’t need to —_

“Completely beautiful,” Tessa is saying the next morning when Mariah awakes after apparently having dozed off again, and Tessa is pressing her lips against the back of Mariah’s neck, at the top of her shoulders, and then applying just a hint of teeth against Mariah’s skin, _one bite and a whole new world will open up to you… _and Mariah has shivers and trembles everywhere. She can feel her body readying itself, to turn and open up to Tessa completely, but right then, there is, of course, _why wouldn’t there be_, no mere knock but a _pounding_ at the door.

_I mean, at least something around here is getting pou_— _pffff, damn._

It had been Sharon, who else, tracking Mariah down, to discuss some love life crisis or other. Now managed as best as Mariah can.

Tonight, they are back here again on the couch that is also a bed, and Mariah is trying again to say that she’s _ready._ More than ready. And really, that she doesn’t see why it makes so much of a difference, in the grand scheme of things, that she hasn’t slept with a woman before. After all, Tessa being a woman has never been even in the top five issues between the two of them anyway.

Sure, _Mariah gets it, OK, _the sex will be a bit new, in a sort of… technical, way, but it will also be a new experience for her to sleep with someone she already feels so close to, won’t it? Someone she has such powerful feelings for _(without even having gone to bed with that person! _Some previous, pre-Genoa City version of Mariah has a good old laugh at that_). _So what about that aspect, huh, _Miss I’m So Experienced?_

“Well, Mariah… I don’t think I’ve ever called myself —”

“You didn’t have to,” Mariah sighs at her girlfriend. “It’s in your… _manner_.”

“My manner…?”

“Yeah, you know: _oh, it could be a guy or it could be a girl_, you never know who Tessa is going to bring to the party. That’s you, isn’t it? It’s all about how you feel at that moment… it’s all about the person, _you’ve had all this mysterious sex…_”

Tessa is smiling.

“You’re ridiculous,” Tessa tells her. Sees Mariah’s look.

“Ridiculously adorable…” Continues to observe Mariah’s look 

“Ridiculously _attractive…! _Oh, OK, you got me. It’s true. I am all mixed up in _very mysterious_ sexual activity…. I did it. In the drawing room. With the lead piping…”

“The… _what?_

“Advanced level stuff…” Tessa smiles more broadly, and dashes a butterfly kiss onto Mariah’s mouth.

“Hey…” Mariah’s cheeks are flushed, for more for than one reason. “You know… _Theresa—”_

“_Not_ my name…”

“I… I don’t come here… to this… this… _shoebox…_ to be mocked…”

“No? What do you come here for, then?” 

“I’m beginning to wonder. I mean, do you even wa—" 

And all at once, the joking is over, Tessa’s kiss is hard and meant, her hands on Mariah’s body more urgent than Mariah has ever felt them, and Mariah doesn’t breathe for a few seconds. They are tangled up in one another, and Tessa lifts her hands to Mariah’s face, to her hair, and back down, puts hands on Mariah in a way she never has before, and Mariah can feel the desire rise higher than ever all at once, a burning need at her core that she needs to have met, and only one person can do it for her. A person who is saying:

“I want you.”

It’s quiet, it’s simple, it’s deliberate.

“So, very, _much. _So very _badly, _Mariah_…_ More than I can tell you.” 

The look between them is incendiary.

“So… _show me_,” Mariah tells Tessa.

_To be continued_


	5. All That I've Been Thinking of is Maybe That You Might

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally getting near justifying that E rating in this chapter.

**2019**

Tessa has wanted Mariah since the first night they met.

“Oh, please.” Out of the corner of one eye, Tessa sees her girlfriend roll her own eyes, at the very idea. 

It’s Saturday morning, one of Tessa’s favorite times of the whole week. She’s working today but, as usual, she’s on the evening shift, and Mariah tends to have the weekends off, at least officially. It turns out that Mariah doesn’t ever, can’t, _is absolutely incapable of_, totally switching off. But she _does _finally slow down a little, after rushing around all week.

They wake together — well, _OK,_ truth be told, it’s usually, as it is every day from Monday to Friday (and Sunday too, but who’s counting), Mariah who is the one who wakes first, way ahead of any weekend alarm, proceeding to check her own social media, and then the GCBuzz social media, and Tessa’s music account social media, and then she makes coffee, and drinks the coffee, then maybe opens a few blinds and lets some sunlight in, has another coffee, checks all the social media again… and then she finally will get back in bed and put her ice cold feet on Tessa’s warm legs to fully wake her... and in _that way_, Tessa supposes, they wake together.

(And Tessa was so sure that she herself would be the one with the colder feet, which just goes to show what she knows).

Not that Tessa really minds, because the two of them can then usually lie around in bed together for an hour or more talking and being close, without either of them having to get up or dash off anywhere. And the morning sun streaming through the windows catches the colour of Mariah’s eyes, her hair, so fully and beautifully... 

“No, it’s true...", Tessa says now. "I thought, who is this absolutely stunning woman? I have to get to know her.”

“What?! Get to _Noah_?”

Mariah sits up suddenly, turns to Tessa, and her eyes are positively furiously ablaze. Tessa realises her mistake, her mind scrambles, her stomach lurches, at what to say, how to fix things this time?! — she begins to stumble over the words to explain that Mariah has misheard, that wasn’t what she said —and then Mariah cracks a smile, and leans in to kiss her. 

“Oh god, your face... _precious_... I know I really shouldn’t joke like that... but let’s face it — you were _so _not right for him...”

Her lover starts early with the jokes. Perhaps it’s better to say that she never really stops. But it’s true that Tessa wasn’t ever right for Noah. Nick and Sharon saw it, for their own reasons; and Mariah, for her own, too.

Tessa and Mariah have both been genuinely very happy to hear that Noah is blissfully loved-up at his London pad with Rebecca, his girlfriend of the last four months. She’s someone exceptionally well-connected, and old money even by British standards. She and Noah were even introduced to Harry and Meghan at a polo match, a story Nikki cannot stop telling anyone who will listen.

“Sharon says that Rebecca is much more suited to Noah,” Mariah tells Tessa. “You know, they _understand each other_.” 

“The way we do?”

“I mean, we are _kind of unique_... but they seem like a good match, from what I hear. They have a lot in common. The particular challenges of growing up rich and that sort of thing...” 

The frequent archness of Mariah’s tone is always particularly pronounced when talking about her half-brother’s upbringing versus her own.

“Yes, I can certainly say I myself couldn’t connect with Noah as to that particular brand of childhood trauma,” Tessa agrees.

Mariah’s gaze meets Tessa’s own. Difficult childhoods? Less than attentive parents? Wanting to get away and get somewhere else, and ending up in Genoa City, Wisconsin? Check, check and check.

For so long, Tessa had thought of herself as fundamentally different to Mariah, the darker side to Mariah’s light, even after Mariah had tried to tell her about the cult, _the crazy twin ghost thing_… but the truth was that they weren’t so very different after all. These days, more and more, Tessa would look at herself and see that future Tessa that Mariah had seemed to always think was there somewhere. The Tessa that Mariah hadn’t given up on: the best version of that person, who was nevertheless possible only, Tessa thought, with Mariah by her side.

Mariah has mentioned parallel universes before; it’s one of the many, many things Tessa’s girlfriend likes to talk about. A world in which she could get to meet and talk to Cassie, in which each of them could have the chance to get to know the twin neither had known existed until it was much too late. A world in which both Hilary and the baby had lived, perhaps.

But Tessa, as is her nature, sometimes ponders darker possible timelines. What about one in which she and Mariah had never gotten past their initial... relationship difficulties? There is, if all worlds can exist at one and the same time — or whatever crazy quantum physics stuff Mariah likes to babble about — a world in which Tessa is still with Mariah’s brother, playing out that long con, wondering how long to wait before engineering “the split” of a relationship that was never real to begin with, one which had she had played a part of, and in, whilst always keeping it entirely separate from her heart. So, there are worlds in which Tessa never gets to know that there’s a whole other way to feel, that true love really is possible, that she can be with someone and not have to lie about anything, or fake anything, at all... 

Tessa feels a shiver run through her, and it’s not just from Mariah’s damn icy feet. There’s another her, out there, somewhere, maybe, who isn’t in bed with Mariah Copeland this morning.

_Well, you can keep that alternate universe. _Because it doesn’t always go perfectly smoothly with Mariah, they can never say that, the course of true love and so on; but it always feels _absolutely right. _

“I was meant to be with you,” is all Tessa says now, quietly, her heart pounding, watching Mariah’s intensely playful look soften to something else.

“Oh... Tess, sweetheart. But there’s no way you knew _that_. Not for sure. Not that first night.”

No, that’s true. Tessa can’t claim she knew she’d be truly in love for the first time in her life, that she would be with someone she now cannot bear the thought of being parted from. She didn’t know she was even _capable_ of feeling that way, for one thing.

But she _can_ say she wanted Mariah, of course she can. Tessa’s whole adult life, she’s always managed to notice the most beautiful woman, inside and out, at any party, in any club, in any given room. However Tessa has labelled herself at different times, and whoever she has ended up in bed with at the end of the night, and even if she’s gone home — when she has had a home, even for the night — with a guy, or entirely alone, she’s never been able to stop the neurons in her brain, as connected to certain other nerve endings, having registered who the most gorgeous woman nearest to her was.

Call that what you want when you happen to be a woman yourself, Tessa has tended to think, and what words has she used in the past? Free-spirited, fluid, open-minded, open-hearted, even _bisexual_, perhaps; but lately, Tessa has been feeling much more comfortable just thinking and saying: gay.

That first night she met Mariah at Underground, she knew at once Mariah was incredible. It took all of five seconds flat, Noah introducing her as his “pushy sister” — and Tessa would learn _so_ much more about just how pushy Mariah could be later — but there was, suddenly, Mariah, babbling, and for a moment Tessa wondered if she, Tessa, could have got this amazing woman flustered after all, and then she heard the stuff Mariah was going on about, about being on a date with a billionaire and realised, damn, it was the good-looking rich guy she was with, who was leaving her so tongue-tied… wasn’t it?

Tessa sometimes still wondered. And had never asked. Was saving that question, maybe, for one day when she might.

But in any case Tessa knew she would like to take Mariah to bed, the first time she met her. Would have done it too, that first night, if Mariah had wanted her to.

“I wanted you,” Tessa says quietly, running her hand up along Mariah’s thigh with at once a softness and yet deliberate pressure, that she knows makes Mariah’s breath hitch.

“What?” Mariah says, her expression changing again. She seems honestly surprised.

“You want me to spell it out for you?” Tessa's tone is low and pointed.

Mariah is blushing. Tessa likes when she blushes.

“I… no, I mean... it’s just that we… had like, you know, literally, just met.”

“It _really_ doesn’t take very long to see how beautiful you are, Mariah. But I'm glad you weren't... I mean, with the benefit of hindsight, I’m glad that we… that we didn’t rush anything.”

“Well, that’s definitely _one way_ of putting it.”

“But of course…" Tessa traces a lazy path up Mariah's body with her fingers, moves her hand over Mariah's entirely perfect breasts, lets her fingers alight on Mariah's collarbone. "Of course, I checked you out. And wondered what your story was. You don’t know that?” Tessa smiles, drops her hand back down, draws a circle on Mariah’s hip with her finger.

It isn’t often these days Tessa leaves Mariah speechless, and she loves it when she can. “I thought to myself, _damn,_ _I wish this girl would ask me to go home with her, but she’s here on a date with some billionaire guy,_ _odds are looking worse than fifty-fifty…”_

Mariah is visibly processing the information. _How can this woman be so gorgeous and not know it? _Tessa wonders sometimes. Of course, it just makes her all the more gorgeous that she doesn't seem to realise the fact. 

“I mean… I’m not sure _what_ I would have done,” Mariah says, “if you’d like… gone ahead and... hit on me.”

Tessa enjoys watching the look on Mariah’s face as she tries to work out the answer. 

“I mean, something was definitely happening that night...” Mariah muses aloud. 

“Well, there’s an alternate universe, right?”, Tessa breathes, and now she is beginning to caress her girlfriend more intently, in places she knows will have a certain effect, and they are both breathing a little harder. “There's one where we made love that first night.”

“You know, scientifically... the physics... and all that... infinite... oh... possibility... I guess there must be,” Mariah murmurs her answer as Tessa shifts her body alongside Mariah's own and they find their rhythm with one another.

And so they decide to pretend that they are very recently-introduced strangers, and explore that other universe for a while. 

****

**2018**

Tessa Porter and Mariah Copeland did not, in fact, make love the first night they met.

Or even for more than a year after that.

There were complications. Mariah had never thought of women that way, not really. Tessa was pretending to be in love with Noah when she was really scamming him.

Just little issues like that.

But, now…

“So, _show me_.”

Tessa is making one final hesitation. If... they _do_ this, and then Mariah realises that it isn’t what she _really_ wants... that, after all, it’s a mistake — well, Tessa’s been here before. She’s lost people from her life in the past but this time? It would be unbearable. She can’t lose Mariah.

“Mariah, listen —”

“I’m serious, Tessa. Look at me. Stop holding back. Please. I want this.”

Tessa looks in Mariah’s eyes. And it’s true that she doesn’t see any doubt there. 

_“Thank you, _for being you", Mariah says. And kisses her full-on, intensely, hard, and they both lose themselves in that kiss for a few moments. It’s a kiss that expresses such a lot of what has already happened between them and which still nevertheless carries the promise of more, the unmistakable swish of Mariah’s tongue now, as it was from the first moment in San Francisco, sending a clear, unmistakable message of desire and want, that Tessa wants to know everything about, to deeply and fully explore, and which she can feel echoes and reflects her own need more than anyone else she’s been with.

She feels closer to Mariah than men or women she’s slept with dozens of times.

“Tessa, no-one’s ever... been so… I don’t know… Is _patient_ even the right word? I mean, I feel like I haven’t been, you know, asking for any extra time here, I… _want this._ But you’re sweet. And special. You’ve always made me feel like _this_ was totally in my hands. Thank you for that. Truly. But I’ve really _never_, _ever_ been so sure.”

And the second kiss is rougher, rawer, more needy, they’re breathing hard against each other, and Tessa’s hands are in Mariah’s luminous, luxuriant hair, and if they weren’t kissing now, Tessa thinks she might be smiling, but this is very serious, it’s really one of the most serious acts of her life. Making love to Mariah Copeland is a big deal, always will be, even after they’ve been together for years. Stratospheric musical success or none at all, Tessa’s life will in some ways always be defined by her love for Mariah, and the physical act of love between them is always so serious, so fun, so vital, so playful, and something which they always get right, even though neither of them have never felt so able to get things wrong, if they need to, so able to fail and fall. But they don't, and not at this. It’s right, from that very first night. Later, they will fight; Mariah will uncover secrets, she will be angry, Tessa will once again feel she is not good enough but even then,_ this_ side of things, the pull Tessa felt that first night, the direction things have been moving since they kissed on that trip, doesn’t stop — they are always, physically, compatible in a thrilling and terrifying and deeply satisfying way. 

Tessa breaks off the kiss. “You’ll tell me, if—?”

Mariah tells her: “I will be sure to let you know, _if_.”

In the thoughts and fantasies she had dared to let herself have, about how it would start, Tessa had always thought it would be she herself taking the lead… but no, of course not... Tessa realises she isn’t even really surprised as Mariah tries to take the initiative, at the same time as she also realises she didn’t even know that this was so exactly how she wanted the very first time to be. 

“Stupid clothes,” Mariah mutters, trying to take pretty much all of Tessa’s off of her at once.

Tessa has to admire this girl’s ambition. “Very annoying,” she concurs.

Having both wanted this so long, it’s somehow nevertheless become very urgent, and in amongst kisses they wrestle with, and undo, buttons, and fight with, and pull down, zips, and manage at last to have no clothing barriers between them. 

“Tessa,” Mariah breathes, when she sees her. _“Wow._”

“Should have taken you somewhere nice,” Tessa mutters, suddenly conscious of how truly beautiful Mariah is and how truly awful her apartment is, and this thing is barely even a bed…

“I don’t need any of that,” Mariah tells her. “Just you, right now.” And she runs her hand up over Tessa’s stomach, across her chest, almost in wonder.

_No-one’s ever looked at me like that_, Tessa thinks. Says it.

“They should. I mean... No.. Well. I want it to be me who — never mind.”

And Mariah takes control again in terms of the position — if you think being on top means being in control, perhaps, which Tessa knows isn’t always true, and Tessa can't help but smile at this girl. She's so fearless. She has feelings for a woman for the first time and she's not once been afraid of that fact or fazed by what it means, including _this bit too _and Tessa loves her for it.

And in the flesh, Mariah’s perfect, she’s just exactly as Tessa knew she would be. Flaming red hair against ivory skin. Perfect, slight curves. Intermingled with her confidence, a slightly self-conscious air that Tessa finds adorable and sexy and wants to eliminate in hours and hours of touch-on-touch expressed love, all at once.

Tessa runs her hands up and down Mariah’s back, strokes Mariah’s spine with her fingertips.

And then, she’s wet, needs Mariah, from the moment Mariah reaches for her. Well, from before that. She’s needed Mariah since long before the first time Mariah touches her.

“Oh my gosh—"

“It’s what you do to me,” Tessa tells Mariah quietly.

“Me?” 

“You.”

“I... get you like this....?”

“You do.” 

“Tell me if I talk too much.”

“Never,” Tessa promises.

Mariah is noisy, vocal, talks all the way through. For all she claims to be better with written words and not talking, it’s clear that the love of her life simply can’t be shut up in bed; pretty much similar to out of it. Tessa loves this, as she expected she would. 

“This is… for me...?”

“All for you,” Tessa confirms, and Mariah begins to slide fingers against her with a purposeful curiosity that has Tessa nearly climaxing, almost immediately, just at the fact it’s finally damn well happening, that she has Mariah on top of her, that they’re doing this. And she feels Mariah react, her slight surprise, but then also her immediate going with it, to carry on doing what she was doing, but somehow, _more. _

“It’s just I’ve been... _like this_... so long... for you...” Tessa breathes against her. 

Mariah likes details.

"Every night," Tessa says quietly. "Sometimes when I see you in the day, I get like this..."

Mariah lets out a noise between a hard breath and a sigh. “Oh... you know, I can help you with that...."

Mariah’s touch does not falter, and Tessa clings to Mariah now as Mariah continues to work on her. Tessa slips her tongue inside Mariah’s mouth as Mariah asks a question with her hand between Tessa’s legs, her fingertips hovering and playing at the edge of Tessa, at the entrance to her. Tessa halts the kiss for the briefest of moments to whisper, against Mariah’s mouth, _yes. _

And then Mariah slips her fingers inside, and she’s more gentle than Tessa was expecting but is inside her with more purpose and certainty than Tessa can recall registering in sex, ever, ever before. Tessa knows she cries out, and if she’s not mistaken, Mariah lets out a happy and fulfilled noise too, because it’s _so good. _Did anyone else ever feel _like this?_

And then Tessa can’t say, or even think, anything at all for some time, because Mariah Copeland is making love to her, and even though she thought she knew what that would mean, it turns out to mean the world is now another place entirely.


	6. Undertow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> E for Explicit, I reckon.

_ **2018** _

Mariah follows her instincts. Follows her heart. Follows the path of desire that leads directly to her making love to Tessa she way she’s wanted to, for months, the way she senses — no, is _very sure_ — Tessa has wanted her to, for months. For, in truth, when Mariah has occasion to properly think about it, maybe a year or more, since that first night in the club, that first conversation. Mariah had been reeling a little that night, dazed, telling herself that it was because of _Devon_, her first date with Devon (_who?? _As she had said to Noah...), _I mean surely her feelings were for her new boyfriend_, not for this woman (a woman!) she had just met.

But when Mariah looks back, if she is honest with herself and how she feels, felt, if she plays back those scenes in her mind, imagines herself in the audience watching how she met and talked with Tessa, the way things were from the start, it’s clear to her now the unspoken, but very real, chemistry and, even, _tension_ between them. And these are sensations that have never really wavered, but which have only heightened, deepened, and begun to take Mariah over from the inside. Factors which ended any slight chance of romance with Devon (_you know it wasn’t just because of Hilary_), and damaged her relationship with her brother (_you know Noah wasn’t right for Tessa. You know you are and you would do the exact same thing again_), and have her holding hands with a woman in public, thereby making it _super_ obvious that they are more than just friends (_you know that whatever label you put on this relationship and even on yourself at this point, you would be happily wearing a feather boa and throwing around rainbow confetti at a pride festival because of how you feel about this woman_), culminating in tonight.

Unspoken. But unstoppable. And it’s unspoken, too, that _this_ is how this first time will be, Mariah moving on top of the most stunning woman — it doesn’t matter — _person_, she has ever met, and starting to explore and learn her body, and feeling Tessa respond, and yet somehow already ready for her. _This_ feels inevitable, just as inevitable as Tessa herself, despite all the obstacles and the odds against their love, has always been, for Mariah. 

Mariah wants to show Tessa how she feels, how much she adores her; she wants to make Tessa feel so very incredibly good, _this way_ and she is seized with a sudden fervour, even a fever, to show worship and devotion and desire. Tessa is her person. Tessa is her passion. Her religion. A new feeling, but a joyous one. 

And now, Mariah feels Tessa so open, and so in want and in need — perhaps more so than Mariah can ever recall her own self being, for anyone.

(Mariah thinks then that Tessa is lucky, that she must be very experienced, or very in tune with her own body. She doesn’t know, until later, and is both turned on and touched to find out, that it’s rare for Tessa to be this way with anyone, too). 

Mariah needs to be inside Tessa, she realises. Realises that’s what Tessa needs too. 

_Yes_, Tessa tells her. 

Mariah responds as she must. 

There is nothing more natural or right, right now, than to look directly into Tessa’s beautiful eyes (_perhaps what captivated her first of all_) as she slips two fingers, softly, slowly and gently inside her.

Tessa gasps, throws her head back, and Mariah hears another gasp too: realises it’s from herself. It’s one of the most pleasurable moments of her entire life, to discover how Tessa feels, _there_, inside, to experience this for the first time. Silky soft, smooth, delicate and yet, not totally pliant, no, not at all. Not that. There is want. There is also delight. 

Neither of them moves for a few moments. They simply luxuriate in the pleasure of this feeling, of Mariah finally being where they have both wanted her for so long. 

And Tessa kisses her. The kiss feels on another plane to any other they have shared. Mariah feels she can see faraway places, or some madness like that, as Tessa’s tongue moves against her own. It’s a moment of incredible peace and serenity at last, Mariah thinks.

And then it changes.

It’s Tessa who does it, who shifts the pace and the position, who shows Mariah what she wants, and how she wants it. And it’s Mariah who reacts, and now begins to move in response, the way Tessa invites, implores her. It’s not long before the rickety old sofa bed is starting to be put through its paces,_ maybe they will need a new mattress..._ because what has begun so gently, is now becoming something more earnest. Tessa is pushing against her hand, even imposing herself, in the most sweetly charming and yet surface-of-the-sun-scorching of ways, and Mariah realises that of course, she herself isn’t in fact the one in control of this, and Tessa smiles at her, realising Mariah realising.

Tessa shifts her legs to be able to wrap them around Mariah’s own, whilst leaving enough room for the act of love between them.

And then —

“You like me like this, for you?” Tessa asks her, in a low voice, with a slight movement of her head downward to her body indicating her position. 

_She means_, Mariah thinks, with a sudden flush of heat to her own core, _on her back, with her legs open, and around me... FOR ME. Do I like her like this....?!!??_

“Holy hell”, is what Mariah thinks she manages to say.

“Because, I _love you_ on top of me,” Tessa tells her, kissing Mariah’s jaw and her neck and somehow pulling in her closer, even though Mariah could have sworn that was physically impossible.

Fierce heat again, and yet somehow shivers down Mariah’s spine. She suspects Tessa is adding the talking thing for Mariah’s benefit. But she isn’t going to complain. And Mariah now, in fact accidentally, brushes her thumb against Tessa’s clit as she slides out, and Tessa leaves off her kisses, moans loud enough to wake the whole block and Mariah thinks right, yes, _of course, of course_, and brings her thumb into proceedings properly. She tries to learn the right pressure and rhythm, takes her cue from Tessa’s movement and noises, how her lover’s body reacts against her hand. 

This woman is beautiful, Mariah thinks. Everywhere. Improvising, with her free hand, Mariah caresses one of Tessa’s perfect breasts, then feels bad for leaving the other out, so strokes that one too, and then she drops her mouth to each and kisses and licks one after the other carefully without even making the conscious decision to do it.

And now, now, like the chaos that was their early days of their feelings for one another, and like their finally, with a little help from their friends, getting together, there is something else inevitable building. Mariah knows it, thinks yes, yes, this always had to happen, _we had to get here and oh god, how I want to do this for her, how I want her to_ — 

Tessa’s breathing is becoming ragged, and there’s a physical change Mariah senses now, waves of movement through Tessa’s whole body, and Tessa is gripping Mariah’s back, her backside, her back again, hard, and pulling Mariah in even closer (_laws of physics have been broken_), and she is saying aloud what Mariah is about to make her do.

Mariah feels her own body react. Tessa’s words make Mariah fully wet. It’s as simple as that. And she feels herself gush again as Tessa finally comes hard against Mariah’s hand, the climax deep, strong, and even a little emotional for them both.

Sex has never been emotional before, Mariah thinks, not before Tessa. She’s never felt moved, or elated, both of which she feels now, to bring someone else to this point. She’s never seen or felt anyone react to her touch the way Tessa does, has all the way through this and especially as she does now, the other woman’s release felt and experienced in Mariah’s own fingers, true waves and waves of pleasure, and Tessa bucking against her again and again, and saying Mariah’s name over and over, and grabbing Mariah’s hand when Mariah is thinking she maybe should be pulling away, and pulling her back in, demanding more, making Mariah cause, and feel, the aftershocks, and then applying more urgency, and Mariah understands that Tessa wants Mariah to make her come again.

So Mariah does this for her with a great happy gladness in her heart, and Tessa reaches that point, quickly, more softly this time, but more completely, it seems. Mariah can feel Tessa’s body finally relax, she enjoys feeling the tension in her lover lift, and knowing she is the cause of this. Tessa is sated, spent, happy. 

_So this is why people go on about se_x, Mariah thinks. She feels a bit foolish that she didn’t know it could be like this. She feels euphoric that she’s now finally learnt that it can be. 

There is wetness everywhere, it has flowed out of Tessa, all over the bedsheets, and all over Mariah’s hand, pooled and realised desire, and it’s truly beautiful. Mariah doesn’t think she herself has ever come like that with anyone.

(Once again, she doesn’t know that night that Tessa has never come like that with anyone else, even other women, either). 

And they are kissing again. And then Mariah is finally holding Tessa afterward, like all the fantasies she’s had about doing so, which in fact, maybe it’s sappy to admit, but who cares, have been just as frequent as the ones about making love to her... but it’s for a mere moment, because Tessa moves out of her embrace. 

“Hey, where are you... no, Tess, you can relax... I...” Mariah is saying. 

But Tessa is already kissing down Mariah’s body with a purpose in mind.

“Really, you — don’t have to — oh, _you _—” Mariah breathes, as she feels Tessa’s tongue on her for the very first time. 


End file.
